


Restless

by Bees_and_Ink



Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Assumed to be Azure Moon route, F/M, Immortality, Mentions of Character Death, Mentions of alternate routes, Post-Game, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 00:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20218837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bees_and_Ink/pseuds/Bees_and_Ink
Summary: Seteth understood what it was like to fear sleep.





	Restless

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I adore this ship and am glad to add my contribution to it! Thalia is just the name of my Byleth. I wrote this at 1 AM, so my apologies for any errors. 
> 
> My writing belongs to me; please don’t claim it as your own!

Seteth understood the troubles that could accompany sleep.

If it’s not the inability to sleep out of fear of never waking up, then it’s the nightmares of the fallen that haunt his wife. He doesn’t blame her; finding out you had been asleep for five years while the rest of the world kept going on without you would be greatly upsetting for anyone. And he could never forget cradling Cethleann’s broken body in his arms, taking her away somewhere safe as she spent so many centuries comatose. He would never forget the _look_ in her bright eyes when he had to explain that her friends, everyone she had known, was dead, that 1000 years had passed. Just remembering the way her face had crumpled would forever make his heart ache because it was something that was out of his hands, something he could never protect her from or make better. He could only take her into his arms and hold her close, promising that they would always be together.

In comparison, five years is nothing, but he knows to Thalia that it isn’t. It’s still the same concept, the scary idea of suddenly being in the future when you had just been living in the past. Five years was a long time for young humans, a time where so much growth could occur. He’s seen it at the monastery and in his travels all throughout his life of how, in the blink of an eye, children were suddenly wearing adult skins and fighting wars and having children of their own. Cethleann had been the same, and it was still hard for him to remember that she was now her own woman, when all he wanted to do was protect her from everything that might harm her. She was too precious to him to lose as well.

Some nights, Thalia will lie awake on his chest, her ear pressed flat against him to listen to the heartbeat she was born without. It will lull her, but she’ll jerk back awake when she notices that she is dozing, panicked eyes seeking out his own to make sure he is still there.

“I promised that I will always remain by your side,” he reminds her, voice soft and creased with sleepy earnesty. “I have no intention of going back on my word. You are a living being who needs sleep, so _sleep_. Heed the signs your body is giving you. I will wake you when morning comes.”

Other nights, when she does find sleep, Thalia will wake in tearful panic. Those are the nights he sits both of them up and holds her impossibly closer, feeling her tears soak into his skin as she confesses her guilt for the dead. Her inability to save her father even with the Goddess’ power, watching Edelgard’s blood darken her scarlet cloak, or even horrible nightmares that don’t reflect reality, but nonetheless are so vivid to her.

Edelgard’s axe coming down on Claude’s neck without mercy. 

Dimitri’s cut-off yell followed by horrific silence. 

Seteth’s ragged, desperate pleas as Flayn falls on the battlefield.

Everyone she ever loved falling to the blade and leaving her alone to the onward march of time. If it’s not the blade, then it’s age.

Sex helps somewhat, and so does alcohol before bed, but he knows ultimately that neither are healthy methods of coping. They’re distractions, not addressing the issue at its root. But the Archbishop is an important woman, and important women need to sleep so they can do important things.

It’s ultimately something that she must come to terms with on her own, to heal while awake. The best he can do is keep his vows to support her even at her lowest, to hold her hand in the dark until she finally finds the exit. That is when they will step out together, bathed in light, and their eyes turned to the future.


End file.
